Snow-Bound - A Winter Idyll

John Greenleaf Whittier

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• Publié par: thewyir
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 69
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Snow-Bound, by John Greenleaf Whittier This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Snow-Bound  A Winter Idyll Author: John Greenleaf Whittier Illustrator: Harry Fenn, Engraved by A. V. S. Anthony and W. J. Linton Release Date: December 30, 2006 [EBook #20226] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SNOW-BOUND ***

Produced by Louise Hope, David Newman, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

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A WINTER IDYL

B Y JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

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B O S T O N JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, L ATE T ICKNOR & F IELDS , AND F IELDS , O SGOOD , & C O . 1872

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the years 1865 and 1867, by J O H N G . W in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

In the present edition of “Snow-Bound,” the Illustrations are drawn by M R . H ARRY F ENN from sketches made by him during a visit to the scene of the poem. The engraving has been done by M R . A. V. S. A NTHONY , under whose supervision the book has been prepared, and M R . W. J. L INTON . The Publishers are confident that the drawing, engraving, and printing will commend themselves to the approval of the critic and the connoisseur; while to those unfamiliar with thelocaleof the poem, the following note from the author will be the best guaranty of the artists’ fidelity. It gives me pleasure to commend the illustrations which accompany this edition of “Snow-Bound,” for the faithfulness with which they present the spirit and the details of the passages and places that the artist has designed them to accompany. J. G. W.

TO THE MEMORY OF

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T H E H O U S E

THIS POEM IS DEDICATED BY T H E A U T

    “As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common VVood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of VVood doth the same.” C OR . A GRIPPA ,Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

 

 

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.” E MEONRS .

HE sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray,

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And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set.

A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened face, The coming of the snow-storm told. The wind blew east: we heard the roar Of Ocean on his wintry shore, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,— Brought in the wood from out of doors, Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows; Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows; While, peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch, The cock his crested helmet bent And down his querulous challenge sent.

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Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag wavering to and fro Crossed and recrossed the wingéd snow: And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window-frame, And through the glass the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on: The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature’s geometric signs, In starry flake, and pellicle, All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,—

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A universe of sky and snow! The old familiar sights of ours Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, Or garden wall, or belt of wood; A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road; The bridle post an old man sat With loose-flung coa The well-curb had

and high cocked hat; a Chinese roof;

And even the long sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendor, seemed to tell Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!” Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy Count such a summons less than joy?) Our buskins on our feet we drew; With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, To guard our necks and ears from snow, We cut the solid whiteness through.

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And, where the drift was deepest, made A tunnel walled and overlaid With dazzling crystal: we had read Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave, And to our own his name we gave, With many a wish the luck were ours To test his lamp’s supernal powers.

We reached the barn with merry din, And roused the prisoned brutes within. The old horse thrust his long head out, And grave with wonder gazed about; The cock his lusty greeting said, And forth his speckled harem led; The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, And mild reproach of hunger looked; The hornéd patriarch of the sheep, Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep, Shook his sage head with gesture mute, And emphasized with stamp of foot.

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All day the gusty north-wind bore The loosening drift its breath before; Low circling round its southern zone, The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. No church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. A solitude made more intense By dreary voicéd elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, And on the glass the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.

Beyond the circle f o our hearth No welcome sound of toil or mirth Unbound the spell, and testified Of human life and thought outside. We minded that the sharpest ear The buried brooklet could not hear, The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companionship, And, in our lonely life, had grown To have an almost human tone. As night drew on, and, from the crest Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,

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The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank From sight beneath the smothering bank, We piled, with care, our nightly stack Of wood against the chimney-back,—

The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick; The knotty forestick laid apart, And filled between with curious art The ragged brush; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old, rude-furnished room Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; While radiant with a mimic flame Outside the sparkling drift became, And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. The crane and pendent trammels showed, The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed; While childish fancy, prompt to tell The meaning of the miracle, Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree, When fire outdoors burns merrily,

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There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood Shone at its full; the hill-range stood

Transfigured in the silver flood, Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, Dead white, save where some sharp ravine Took shadow, or the sombre green Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black Against the whiteness at their back. For such a world and such a night Most fitting that unwarming light, Which only seemed where’er it fell To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north-wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat; And ever, when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it passed, The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed, The house-dog on his paws outspread

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